‘Killer’ Blueline buses should not return, HC told

A senior lawyer assisting the Delhi High Court in the blueline phase out case has told the judges that the killer buses should not be allowed to return even by giving alternate routes in outer Delhi as part of their rehabilitation plan, reports Harish V Nair.

A senior lawyer assisting the Delhi high court in the blueline phase out case has told the judges that the killer buses should not be allowed to return even by giving alternate routes in outer Delhi as part of their rehabilitation plan.

“I am opposing plan to rehabilitate nearly 1,500 blueline operators by allotting them routes in outer Delhi. Were not they removed from the capital as they were indisciplined, rash and killed innocent pedestrians. What is the guarantee that they will not repeat the act in the alternate routes given to them”, Kailash Vasdev, the appointed amicus curiae in the case told a bench headed by justice Pradeep Nandrajog.

“I am not in agreement with the rehabilitation plan”, said Vasdev. The comments came as the Delhi government put such a rehabilitation plan before the court and blueline operators requested the court to give consent to it at the earliest. The court will hear detailed arguments from Vasdev, government and blueline operators on May 3.

The government told the court that transport department has worked out a policy to rehabilitate the nearly 1,500 Blueline operators who had surrendered their permits a few years ago when the government had announced its plan to phase out blueline buses.

The transport department has chalked out 97 new routes on which 1,532 new mini-buses will be allowed to run. These routes are different from the 657 routes on which the DTC and the private cluster buses operate. Government’s emphasis is to connect areas developed in the past 10 years such as Dwarka, Rohini, Jasola, Vasant Kunj, Narela and unauthorised colonies in outer Delhi and south Delhi. Transport department has also decided that these new buses won’t enter the New Delhi and central Delhi areas and will have to keep to the boundaries fixed by the transport department.